The Good Life

It’s been almost three months since I left. It’s hard to tell what the right decision is. I think there is no steady right decision, it’s all based on a moment. Where you are and what’s going on at the time. He was hurting me physically, so I left.

A year ago I was desperately hanging onto him. I didn’t want him to leave. He wanted to leave, but he wanted to make sure he got his papers first. It left me in a tough spot. I still had to be married to the person that was hurting me. He was married emotionally, and he wanted to go off with other women and do whatever he wanted. Even though I wanted it to work out between us at the time, I told myself it would hurt to leave, but it would hurt more to stay. When you leave, days go by without having that misery slammed in your face. When you stay, it’s torture. Why should you have to be a crazy woman to make sure the person you’re married to keeps his promise. This is what made me hate marriage. I never wanted to be the paranoid girl. Ever since then I can always understand a bitchy, crazy lady. I understand what got her to that point.

Maybe I shouldn’t hate marriage because of a bad experience with one person. Maybe there are honest people that wouldn’t make me hate myself the way he did, but the idea that people that great do exist sounds so impossible. Then again, maybe I’m still in the hurt phase. Maybe this feeling will pass and I will move on to believe that there is a such thing as a good marriage and someone to help me make that dream come true.

Do these things really exist? Or is this a fairytale that we like to believe in like Gods and horoscopes? If it does, that’s lovely and I hope to one day experience it. If not, I can see how that is, and I wouldn’t want to make another attempt to fool myself.

Starting over from scratch can be the most wonderful and the most painful thing that you ever have to do, depending on your mindset. The last time I began again was my first year of college. I was scared. I didn’t know anyone. I didn’t have any ties to that town. But one thing I can say is that I was happy. I was so happy I was frightened by it. I wasn’t sure why I was so happy. After looking back at it a few years later, I’d come to realize this happiness was from finally letting go of a relationship that had been pulling me back. I had dropped my pride and released a guy I loved very much. But we were tearing each other apart and it needed to end. I guess sometimes doing a scary thing gives you a much better outcome than you expected.

I guess sometimes doing a scary thing gives you a much better outcome than you expected. I guess that’s why it wasn’t so hard this time around. Though the man I left, this time, made it pretty easy to let him go. So I thought. I was busy for the first couple of months. I didn’t have time for it to really soak in. Now that I can concentrate. Now that I have time to think, I know it was the right decision. Living and loving someone that lies to you is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. It made me feel horrible. Vulnerable. Like I was never good enough. It made me feel like the whole marriage was a lie for the papers. He always hated it when I asked that, but this is how he made me feel. It doesn’t hurt so bad when I am able to forget about all the lying and the secrets, all the ways I bent myself to try and make him happy. I lost so much of me that I’ll never get back, but I guess this is what the new page in my life is for, getting know me after that disaster.

I suppose it’s all for the best. Another lesson I had to learn the hard way. I learned so many things. And yet I stuck true to what I told myself five years ago, “It’s not worth it if it doesn’t make you happy”. Following your own happiness is the best thing you can do. No one else is ever going to care about you. So here I am, finding my happiness in my artwork without having a husband telling me how horrible it is. I am finding my happiness in ballet, without worrying that my husband will be flirting with my fellow ballerinas. I’m finding my happiness in me, without having a bag of negativity to drag me down. And hopefully, if all goes well, I will be following my happiness to Portland this summer.